September 11, 2001. I was an eighteen year old newlywed. Chris worked nights, and I worked very late. We were still in bed asleep in our first little apartment when someone banged on our door and woke us up. I got up and answered the door in my nightshirt to see Chris’ mom standing there looking alarmed. The first words out of her mouth…”We’re at war.”

I still remember how my heart stopped. I began to cry as Chris turned on our tiny television. He was in the Army Reserves. Combined with the overwhelming grief for my countrymen as we watched that plane fly into the tower over and over again, was the fear that my new husband would leave me to go to war. I went to work that night with an incredibly heavy heart. My coworkers and I talked of nothing else. No one knew who was responsible. Our familiar world had been challenged. I remember sitting alone in the computer room of that grocery store, going through the motions of that job, and praying that Chris wouldn’t have to leave me. It may seem silly to some, but I was scared to death that he would leave me and I would lose him…and I wouldn’t have a child to remember him by. We had been trying for a couple of months to get pregnant, and I couldn’t bear the thought of him going to war.

I got pregnant the next month. Chris didn’t get called up to go to war. Kyra was born in June, Chris got out of the Reserves a month or two after that, and his unit got deployed to Kuwait for a year that summer. 

Fast forward to today, seven years later…September 11, 2008. I watched a video of the attack on a blog. Kyra saw me crying. My little baby is six years old now. I had never told her about the events of this day seven years ago. Today I told her about the day our country was attacked. I told her about our fellow Americans who died that day, in hijacked planes and burning buildings. I told her about the firemen who continued to run into a burning, crumbling building to save all they could. I told her about the men on the plane who stood up to Evil and gave their lives in a field in Pennsylvania to save the lives of so many others. I told her that this is the kind of country we live in. Where terror is confronted by heroism. Where ordinary people do extraordinary things. I told her that this is a country worth defending.

I told her that the events of that day were why Uncle Aaron joined the Air Force. That our freedom was worth protecting. I told her that was why Uncle Jason went to Iraq…why Uncle Joel went to Afghanistan. It’s worth defending. It’s worth standing up and saying that we will not be crushed.

I stood in the kitchen and cried, and Kyra watched me thoughtfully. She asked, “Were those people who died saved?” Through my tears, I told her that some of them were, but not all of them. She told me that was sad. I told her that’s why we tell them about Jesus. We don’t know tomorrow. We have to tell them before it’s too late.

“That’s why Daddy’s going to be a Chaplain?”

Yes. That’s why Daddy is going to be a Chaplain. I told her that our soldiers risk their lives to defend our freedom, and sometimes they die. Daddy’s going to tell them about Jesus so that they will be ready to go to Heaven. They’re willing to die for us…we’re willing to send our Daddy to help them know Jesus.

Seven years later, and I have not forgotten. I still remember how I felt that day. I’ll never forget. With the new knowledge that their world can be scary, my little children won’t either. This new information didn’t leave them scared and afraid, though. It validated their belief that their Daddy is doing an important thing. They were proud of him…proud of our friends and family who serve. Proud to be Americans. Thankful for our freedom.

I’m no longer afraid that my husband will be sent to war. I know now that he will be. Now, I am ready.